


Afterlife

by Trixen



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And don't die, it really sucks. Cause everything's like, over. Even the nightmares don't come anymore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterlife

_Lilly Kane was dead._ And so, Veronica followed, as best friends do, into that dark place. But she could not truly go, and so her hair fell down and her skirts showed naked thigh and she kissed boys she would not normally kiss. She took her first shower with the lights turned off in the weeks after Lilly bled out against the sky, and it was only then that she felt close to her friend, her love, and the wetness was like Heaven. It was like dying without giving up.  
  
If there was one thing Veronica had always hated, it was giving up. In the aftermath of Lilly’s death, she used her rage and grief for fuel. Counting her sorrows made her crackle with electricity; a fire girl. People became scared of her. The girl with the combat boots and skinniness, the girl who demanded answers and ruined lives if they needed ruining. She was simply following Lilly into the dark place, trying to fathom it, shape it, make it her own. She wanted to _understand_ where Lilly had gone, what she had felt in those moments when her eyes went wide and her dreams hovered above her, naked in the daylight.   
  
When Lilly moved on, took her pink bikini and smeared lipstick and _left_ , Veronica didn’t. She could still hear her best friend whispering in her ear.   
  
“Don’t you get it yet, V? I _made_ you. You’re like, my bitch. Don’t forget that, especially when you’re fucking my boyfriend. I had his dick inside me first.” Lilly’s laugh, like soap bubbles breaking. “And don’t die, it really sucks. Cause everything’s like, _over_. Even the nightmares don’t come anymore.”  
  
Veronica understood suddenly, where Lilly had gone, what she had _seen_ in those moments of horror, and she realized she could not climb from the darkness. She could not stop herself from standing in front of the mirror and turning off the light. A little _bzzpt_ and she was swallowed.  
  
+  
  
Veronica thinks she sees a mermaid in July. Of course, it could be the rum, but like Fox Mulder, Veronica wants to believe. She’s lounging on the beach outside Logan’s new condo, with Dick of all people, and the mermaid is near the breakers, where the water is split between light and dark. Her hair is white kelp and her face is not altogether beautiful, but she has eyes like storms and lips like Lilly’s. Breasts like Lilly’s too, with brown nipples that have been pebbled by the cool Pacific. Although she was probably just attracted by the noise of the party, Veronica fantasizes that she is a talisman, and she waves.  
  
Dick squints at her. “I’m over here, Mars.”  
  
“Don’t you see that?”  
  
“Dude, I’ve had like, two and a half cases of beer. You think I can _see_?”  
  
“It’s a mermaid,” Veronica whispers dreamily.  
  
“Uh, no, its _rum_. I thought you’d hold your booze better than this.”  
  
“I hold my booze just fine!” she says, hiccupping delicately. “I see what I see.”  
  
“Wanna know what I see? One drunk off her ass bitch.”  
  
“Why thank you, Dick. How ever do you keep the girls away with all that charm?”  
  
“It’s a mystery,” he acknowledges, and leans over, trying to kiss her. His lips are sloppy and she pushes him away with one hard shove against his breastbone, near his heart.  
  
“I may have bad taste in men, Dick, but its not that bad.”  
  
He chuckles. “Geez, Ronnie, if you want to hit me where it hurts, just tell me my cock’s too small.”  
  
“I would, but I’m too busy being thankful that I have no idea of its size.”  
  
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Want an idea? I can arrange a private tour.”   
  
She has to laugh. “Arrange it through Logan and make sure to take notes on how purple he gets. I love when that vein starts throbbing in his forehead. Sexy with a capital S.”  
  
Dick flops against the sand, lifting one hand and running it through the blond salt of his hair. The corner of his mouth quirks a bit. “I know Beav raped you.”  
  
She tastes vomit at the back of her throat. Strikingly sharp. “What?”  
  
“I’m just sayin’ that I know. You must hate him.”  
  
“No,” she says, exhausted suddenly. “No, I don’t.”  
  
“I do.” Dick straightens, staring at her. “He pussied out.”  
  
“Pussied out,” she repeats.  
  
“Yeah.” He is still staring at her, and she wonders if he is seeing Cassidy on top of her, pushing her legs apart. “I saw him fall past the window. I thought I was seeing things and I thought I was on some pretty stellar shit and then it turns out Beav is broken all over some convertible. I mean, that’s just _sick_. They made me like, come down and identify him and shit. Did Logan tell you, V?”  
  
“No,” she whispers, vaguely frightened in a way she can’t discern. “He didn’t.”  
  
“His back was smashed up pretty bad and they were trying to scrape his brains off the windshield. His eyes were practically in his fucking hair, it was so _sick_ and I couldn’t really tell it was him, even, ‘cept he was wearing this old T-shirt he liked to sleep in when he was a kid and that’s how I knew. Wanna hear something fucked up?”  
  
She doesn’t, but she says “Yes” because if she says no, he will just tell her anyway, and she is trying to be _nice_ to Logan’s friends. Even if he isn’t paying attention to anything but her lately. Even if this summer has been too long and hot by half. Even if, even if, she can still see the mermaid, watching her, silvery as the fishes and just as slippery.  
  
“I kissed him,” Dick says, his voice like a wire to be tread upon. He is drunk, and she realizes he will not remember this tomorrow, and she believes that to be a very fortunate thing. If there is one thing Dick hates, if there is one thing that is alien to him, it is vulnerability. “As like a goodbye or something. And man, the little people were all looking at me like I was fucking naked or something but I mean, dude, what the fuck was I supposed to do? Just be all, 'well little bro, it was fun, see ya when its my turn to go'? Fuck _that_. I was gonna say my peace, ya know, get my last word in and that’s all I could think of. It seemed right. Wasn’t much I could say that he would hear, anyways.”   
  
Veronica nods. The sand is spongy beneath her elbows and she finally lets her head be cushioned by it. The stars seem to be expanding and contracting all around her. She shouldn’t have had so much rum. It eddies in her belly, which feels swollen, as if with a baby.   
  
“Dude, are you asleep?” Dick says.  
  
“No. Just enjoying the sibilance of the waves.”  
  
He elbows her, _hard_. “High School’s over. You don’t have to use words like that anymore.”  
  
“Are you high?” she snaps. “We’re starting college in a few months, _Richard_. College is all about words like that.”  
  
“Not for me,” he crows. “It’s all about da laaaadies!”  
  
“Did you even get in anywhere decent?”  
  
He seems to think about that for a moment. “My Dad’ll call in a favor. Beav was the one with the geeker joy. I don’t give a shit where I go, just so long as there’s beer and chicks.”  
  
“Ahhh, the finer things in life.”  
  
“Damn straight. You’d better recognize,” he slurs and rolls over, so that his cheek is pressed against the whiteness. He looks so pale, so pale, without his surfer tan, and his breath smells of bile and Cassidy’s dead boy kiss. “Why’ve we never hooked up, Ronnie?”  
  
“Because I hate being called that,” she says softly, rolling him back over so that he will not choke on his vomit if he throws up. “Sweet dreams, Dick.”  
  
+  
  
 _Cassidy Casablancas is dead_. Nobody is quite sure how they are allowed to mourn him. Logan dreams of his Mother and the Coronado Bridge. He will not tell Veronica about the dreams, but sometimes he cries out in his sleep and she holds him against her breasts, touching his damp skin and smelling the grief, like sickness in the air.  
  
Mac calls Veronica in late July, from her position outside of Cassidy’s house. Veronica has to go over, peel her off the steaming asphalt, make her go home, brush her teeth, get into bed, be _tough_. She still hasn’t told Mac about the rape, about the smell of exploded airplane, about the way Logan had to talk the gun from her hands. She doesn’t tell Mac that she desperately wanted to kill him, that she would have if Logan hadn’t reminded her that she was Keith Mars’ daughter. No, she simply puts her friend to bed, brushes blue hair from her eyes, reads her stories and leaves the light on. It is the least she can do. She cannot follow her into the darkness, not truly, and so she does the next best thing.  
  
She goes home and she showers with the light off, so that it is as if she is in a dark wet closet, shattering beneath hot water.  
  
+  
  
She cannot even look at her Father anymore without seeing the fireball in the sky; like a burning earth. She tells Duncan that when he calls in August, tells him that she misses him.  
  
His voice is easy, relaxed. “I miss you too, baby. Say hi to Lilly.”  
  
There are gurgles and little sounds and Veronica laughs.  
  
“She sounds just like her Daddy.”  
  
“Burn,” he says. “At least she didn’t get my looks.”  
  
“God truly did have mercy on her.” Veronica is silent for a moment. “I wish you could come back.”  
  
“I wish I could too. Do you still have the fortune?”  
  
She thinks guiltily of it, how she avoids Logan’s questioning glances in its direction. She’s not ready for that Q&A just yet. “Of course.”  
  
“Then you know it’ll be someday. I don’t know when.”  
  
“Someday,” she echoes, knowing it is a lie. For many reasons. “How is it where you are?”  
  
“Peaceful,” he answers. “And where you are?”  
  
“The exact opposite,” she shakes her head, cupping the phone close. It is as if he is next to her. “I thought I saw a mermaid last month.”  
  
He chuckles. “Imbibing with the big boys, were you?”   
  
“Logan had a party,” she replies. “But I was sure I saw her. I think she was protecting me.”  
  
“Maybe she is,” he says lightly. “You certainly need protection.”  
  
“That’s Neptune for ya. Murder and mayhem is the order of every single day.”  
  
“If you ever get tired of it, you know where to find me.”  
  
And she does. “Through the looking glass,” she whispers.  
  
“In Wonderland.”  
  
“Do you ever think about Lilly?”   
  
He breathes in. “She was my sister. Of course I do.”  
  
“Do you feel like… she made you into who you are?”  
  
“No, Veronica, I don’t.”  
  
She knows he is not telling her the truth. “I feel haunted.”  
  
“You always did.”  
  
+  
  
“Don’t you fucking use me, Veronica,” Logan rasps, when she tries to blame him, fuck him like she feels she’s been fucked. She is on top of him, naked from the waist down, and his penis is thick and strong between her legs. But she can only stomach it if she is in control, if she can keep her palms pressed against his forearms.   
  
“Don’t you do that,” he says again. “I won’t be that guy for you.”   
  
He is just as angry as she is that she was raped, and she can’t blame him for that and then in a way she can, because it happened to _her_ and doesn’t he get how specific it was? How Cassidy shoved his penis into _her_ vagina and covered her with his sperm and she was just a lamb, just an animal to be sacrificed. A roofied little bitch, led to the slaughter and it is so unfair, because she didn’t even get a chance to fight back.  
  
“I’m not,” she gasps as he slides inside of her. “I just can’t—“  
  
“I’m not _him_ ,” he says painfully. “I could never hurt you.”  
  
“I know,” she says, and she isn’t lying. He is sweating and so is she, and the waves wrap around the beach outside. “I want to be ok.”  
  
“You’re perfect,” he whispers and reaches up, cupping her face. “Don’t let that bastard win. He’s dead.”  
  
Everybody’s dead and they’re still winning. She feels as if she and Logan are making love in a graveyard, and each movement grinds bones to dust. Leaning down so that her nipples graze his chest, she kisses him. He tastes of what he was doing to her earlier, and she blushes. He laughs softly, feeling the heat of it.  
  
“You’re still innocent.”  
  
“Maybe,” she says, and kisses him again, licking her lips and tasting herself.  
  
 **~Finis**


End file.
